Russian Coast News

Russia warned Britain on Thursday that it would bomb British naval vessels in the Black Sea if there were any further provocative actions by the British navy off the coast of Russia-annexed Crimea.Russia summoned the British ambassador in Moscow for a formal diplomatic scolding after the warship breached what the Kremlin says are its territorial waters but which Britain and most of the world say belong to Ukraine.Britain said Russia was giving an inaccurate account of the incident.

Arctic thaw aids shipping most along Russian coast; Russia to start LNG exports from Yamal in late 2017. Russian shipping in the Arctic is benefiting from winds that are driving the oldest and thickest sea ice towards North America, further opening a remote region that is thawing amid global warming, scientists say. The thinning Russian ice could help liquefied natural gas (LNG) tankers, due to start exports from Russia's Yamal Peninsula in late 2017, to navigate an icy route east to Asia for more than a planned six months of the year, they said. Almost all attention on Arctic shipping has focused on how global warming is shrinking the extent of ice around the North Pole, opening a summertime short-cut route between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

The UK P&I Club has compiled an FAQ which focuses on the implications for P&I insurance of choosing to use the Northern Sea Route. The Northern Sea Route (NSR), or North East Passage, runs along the Russian coast from the Atlantic to the Pacific through the Kara, Laptev, East Siberian, and Chukchi Seas, having the potential to significantly shorten voyage times between European and Far Eastern ports. The exact routing is variable and depends on the time of the year, ice conditions, and the size and draft of the ship in question. The route has long been used by Russian shipping for domestic purposes, but, with climate change reducing levels of Arctic sea ice, has been used for commercial voyages by international shipping since 2009 and numbers of such transits have steadily increased.

Contracts worth around EUR 2-billion for construction of the first of the four offshore lines of the trans-Baltic South Stream gas pipeline have now been signed by South Stream Transport and Saipem, inform Gazprom. Saipem is to build the first offshore line of the South Stream gas pipeline as well as erect process facilities in the shore crossing areas, and construct the landfalls. Pipes will be welded together on board a special pipe-laying vessel and then laid in position on the seabed at a depth of up to 2,200 meters.

Gazprom board members at the South Stream Transport B.V. joint company in Amsterdam noted significant progress in the project. Approval was given for the signing of pipe supply contracts for the first of 4 lines of the 931-kilometer offshore gas pipeline & a mandate to complete the negotiations on the pipe laying work was given. The South Stream gas pipeline project aims to contruct a gas pipeline with a capacity of 63 billion cubic meters across the Black Sea to Southern and Central Europe for the purpose of diversifying the natural gas export routes and eliminating transit risks.

Greenpeace's “Arctic Sunrise” is nearing the Russian port on tow from the Pechora Sea, accompanied by a Russian Coast Guard vessel (with the protest crew locked up on board) after an attempt to board the Gazprom drilling rig Prirazlomnaya. The Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise is close to arriving in the port of Murmansk after being boarded by Russian authorities last week following a peaceful protest against Arctic oil drilling. The ship has arrived under tow in the fjord near Murmansk  accompanied by a tug boat and the Russian Coast Guard vessel Ladoga…

Greenpeace in a 'Tweet' report their ship, 'Arctic Sunrise', boarded in the Pechora Sea by the Russian Coast Guard, and the 25 crew arrested and locked in a room, following a protest against Gazprom's Arctic drilling operations. The Greenpeace website carried information that by means of a helicopter and ropes, armed Coast Guard officials boarded the vessel and started rounding up the activists, assembling them on the helideck. Greenpeace International activists locked inside the radio room said they saw other activists detained on their knees with guns pointed at them.

Activists from the environmental organization Greenpeace International attempted to climb aboard Gazprom’s oil drilling platform 'Prirazlomnaya' in the Pechora Sea to stop it from becoming the first to produce oil from the region, reports the Barents Observer. Five inflatable boats were launched from the Greenpeace ship "Arctic Sunrise" in the early morning hours today and headed for the Prirazlomnaya platform, which the owner Gazprom says is now ready to start drilling . One of the inflatables was confronted by the Russian Coast Guard, and two activists were arrested.

Having defied Russian refusal to grant the Greenpeace ship 'Arctic Sunrise' permission to enter the Kara Sea area on the Northern Sea Route, Russian coastguards boarded and threatened to open fire unless the protesters turned back. An oil spill here is practically inevitable – and a clean up virtually impossible. At risk is the fragile Arctic nature, the narwhals, polar bears, bowhead whales, walruses, seals, and dozens of bird species. At risk is also the planet – more oil, more carbon in the atmosphere, accelerated climate change.

The ship, named the Brilliant, was developed by the Severnoye Design Bureau and built at the Almaz shipyard in St. Petersburg. Project 22460 ships are designed to protect state borders and patrol territorial waters, and also to fight sea piracy. The new vessels are intended to replace the Soviet-built patrol fleet. The lead ship of the project, the Rubin, was handed over to the Russian Federal Security Service’s Black Sea-Azov Frontier Directorate in September 2010. Another serial ship, the Zhemchug, is currently under construction. Project 22460 ships’ water displacement is 630 tons; they have a maximum speed of 30 knots, an operating range of 3,500 miles, and endurance of up to 30 days. The 62.5-meter vessels are equipped with advanced navigation and communication systems and a helipad.

Russia expressed optimism about plans for a short-cut Arctic sea route between Europe and the Pacific Ocean despite skepticism from the Russian military and some foreign shipowners. "Of course there are problems...but we look at the future of the Northern Sea Route with optimism," Russian Transport Minister Sergei Frank said. The seaway is almost 40 percent, or up or 4,000 miles (6,400 km), shorter than conventional routes via the Suez or Panama canals between Europe and Japan. The end of the Cold War has revived mariners' dreams of creating a commercial passage through the ice. Frank said Russia is studying the building of a new generation of nuclear ice-breakers…